Can Can

The U.K. ISBN No. is 1 900541 50 5 and the U.S. ISBN No. is 0 8386 3820
1.

It's a well-illustrated and (I
hope) entertaining account of the history of the dance, the colourful
personalities involved, the dance-halls and the music (the ballets,
operettas and musicals). It also discusses the nineteenth-century
influences on the cancan's development, including women's fashions
(particularly their underwear), sex and morality and major political
changes. It contains chapters on the paintings and films inspired by
the dance, and concludes with a chapter on the dance today and its
feminist implications.

The cancan developed from the galop, a popular dance in the public
dancing gardens and dance-halls of Paris in the early part of the
nineteenth century. When it first appeared in 1830, the cancan was
really an exaggerated form of the galop, with high kicks and other
gestures with arms and legs, mostly initially performed by men, and
later also by their female partners. It was viewed as shocking by
"respectable" people because it implied a lack of self-control
and
involved more bodily contact between participants than was thought
acceptable.

The cancan had various influences, and some historians have compared
it to dances from centuries earlier. It had more direct influences,
including the acrobatic performances in the 1820s of one Charles
Mazurier, who starred as Jocko the monkey in a revue in Paris. The
dancers at the working-class dancing gardens may well have seen him
perform and tried to copy some of his actions on the dance-floor.

It evolved over the years from a participatory dance for couples into
a professional, choreographed entertainment performed primarily by
women. Women had made the dance their own by the time of the Second
Empire. Although they often still performed with a partner, it was the
individual exploits of the likes of Rigolboche that people came to
see. These dancers of the Second Empire were mostly, if not all,
middle-ranking courtesans, whereas the famous dancers of the 1890s,
like La Goulue, were professionals, earning high wages at the Moulin
Rouge. The element of skirt manipulation, essential to the cancan
today, only really became part of the cancan in the 1890s, with the
appearance of the elaborate erotic underwear characteristic of the
turn of the century.

I started my book more than six years ago after a visit to Paris and
the
Paradis Latin. This cabaret was particularly well choreographed then (I
was
there again last year, and I thought it had deteriorated) and the climax
of
the show was the cancan. The audience - who were mostly French - applauded
and cheered more than for any other part of the show.

The following day I spent some time in bookshops trying to find out if
any
book existed on the cancan, and after finding nothing specific my wife
said, "Well you'd better write one yourself."

Being no dance expert, I wasn't sure this was a good idea, but I thought
I
could probably produce something that would satisfy the tourist market.
After some initial research at the British Library, I then contacted the
Royal Academy of Dancing, thinking that they would probably be
unsympathetic to a project on a dance as trivial as the cancan! I was
quite wrong, because, as I know now, the cancan is viewed as seriously in
the dance world as any other dance, and they felt its history needed to
told, because it played a significant part in the development of French
dance in the 19th century. Coincidentally, the chairman of the Royal
Academy of Dancing is an expert, probably _the_ expert, on 19th century
French dance, and he has been a great help and encouragement to me.

The cancan's history is surprisingly complex, and its evolution is unusual,
in so far as it actually did evolve, changing gradually over the years from
its initial appearance as ballroom dance for couples in 1830 to a
choreographed stage spectacle which really only became "standardized"
in
the 1920s.

There is a lot of confusion over what the cancan is, or was at any stage
in
its development, and I have tried to expose some of the myths that exist
about it in the book. But it's not all dry as dust history, and I hope it
will also be an entertaining read. I've always enjoyed the cancan, I
freely admit, since first seeing on stage at the age of 10, and I have
enjoyed doing the research for the book!

This file is part of the FAQ list for the newsgroup rec.arts.dance. The
FAQ list is being maintained by Victor Eijkhout (victor at eijkhout dot
net, talk about vanity), who appreciates being sent additions or corrections
on the material in this collection. Copyright 1994/5/6/7/8/9/2000 lies with
the maintainer and the contributors of various parts.

Listen up: Victor did not write most of this stuff; he just collected
it. So don't send him any dance questions.

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